Live Review: Blacklist

Stretched over four nights this year, the irreverent and insane afterparty of Dark Mofo, Blacklist, sold out in record time. Some of the many music highlights spread over the two stages included warped-rock jam band King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Itchy-O, an American 32-piece percussion orchestra, and Tasmanian DJ duo S L O W. 

Held in the City Hall of Hobart, the old stone building was bathed in red as punters tried night after night to line up and get tickets, with some tickets even appallingly selling for quadruple the sale price on Gumtree. Upon entering you face disembodied human features arranged to make a face: lush red lips and two balloon knots for eyes. There is a sense that maybe you didn't quite know what you were signing up for. The best experiences from Dark Mofo are always found by throwing yourself in the deep end and as you push through the throngs of people and peer beyond the curtains you find yourself in a large hall, a hall that without stage lights and lights from the three bars is otherwise plunged in a dark and messy red wash. High above you long red tendrils hung suspended from the ceiling, and as you burst out into the side street, across and into the small ramshackle bikie bar of Joe's Garage, a woman dances naked from the low rafters; her face painted in neon absurdity, she lights a sparkler and wedges it between her butt cheeks, grinding against the ceiling beams as if a scene from The Bacchae. Her name is Betty Grumble, and she is just one of the puzzle pieces of this infamous afterparty.

Each night there are several dance groups (Tasdance, vogue group Slay, Grumble's Gang Of She, and sometimes rogue festival goers) dressed in a multitude of costumes they wind and unease the crowd from stages and from the dancefloor. On the third night the theme is Purple Rain, and there are several Prince tributes on stage and in crowd. What makes Blacklist so successful is you never know who is playing, where or when, so you run frantic as a child, exploring. This year there are slides to go down, a room at the back with a prism full of beautiful and grotesque human movement scenes (depending when you arrive) and upstairs a small whisky bar serving good white oak Kobe whisky — sacrilegiously on ice. It is a whirling chaotic cosmos, dangerous and dark. However it has lost much of the lustre of previous years, the City Hall does not pack the small crevices and dark niches, like the Odeon. While two stages seemed plenty, there were nights when both were simultaneously playing similar ambient electronic noise and the street between City Hall and Joe's Garage was littered with listless smokers waiting and wishing for the shows to unravel.

You can't have a bad Blacklist if you go into it willingly, but apart from the few music highlights previously mentioned these dark nights do not rival shows past and hopefully future. The dance performers were the standouts — with incredible costumes (nude suits, blue glitter faces, a host of the brilliant and macabre) and physical ability, the wonderful oddities let punters twist their night away in suitable depravity. You can never expect the unexpected but Dark Mofo proves us wanting for weird, only thirsting for more when 3am hits and we slink weary and wired into the streets to compare notes.